Security systems are often installed within a premises such as commercial, residential, or governmental building. Examples of these buildings include offices, hospitals, warehouses, multi-unit dwellings, schools or universities, shopping malls, government offices, and casinos. These systems generally include security panels that function as system controllers and distributed devices.
Kitchens are among the most frequent locations of fire origin within residences and commercial buildings. Kitchen fires are usually the result of cooking accidents involving cooking appliances. Cooking appliances include cooktops, ranges/stoves, toasters, toaster ovens, and microwave ovens.
These cooktops include one or more heating elements that are controlled by an individual for heating and/or cooking of food. An individual controls the level of energy applied to the heating elements using control knobs, for example, of the cooktops. Examples of heating elements include radiant heating elements such as electrically heated coils, inductive heating elements, and natural gas fired heating elements.
The cooktops are either part ranges or are standalone devices. The ranges include cooktops and ovens, and may help save kitchen space. The standalone cooktops are typically installed in or placed upon a countertop.
The cooktops especially require supervision by individuals. In one example, this is due to the open nature of cooking with cooktops, where grease and/or food can ignite. Moreover, cooktops do not have a built-in control mechanism to shut off the source of energy applied to the heating elements after a preset time period, as in other cooking appliances.
Unfortunately, instances of unattended/unsupervised cooking using cooktops does occur for various reasons. In one example, individuals may simply become distracted and forget that the cooktop is on. In other examples, the individual might not be able to turn off a cooktop due to the individual experiencing a medical issue such as a heart attack or stroke, or otherwise not be able to respond to a cooktop fire fast enough due to limited capacity. These latter reasons are especially a concern among individuals aged 65 years or older. According to an ongoing study of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), people over age of 65 have 2.5 times greater risk of dying in a kitchen fire than the general population, often due to unattended cooking using cooktops.
Current approaches for monitoring whether or not a cooktop is supervised typically involve capabilities integrated within the cooktop itself. The approaches generally require the addition of multiple sensors that detect when the cooktop is turned on, and then monitor other factors over time. In examples, these approaches require the addition of sensors to monitor energy consumption, gas flow, or to supervise positions of knobs that supply energy to the heating elements, along with activity detection (whether people are present and/or moving within the kitchen).